It's Better in Wyoming.

Riding my bike to campus this morning and watching as a kid driving a big Ford pickup tidily backed a generator into a parking lot of cars at the Washington Square Apartments, I wished I knew how to back up a trailer. I've had this wish for a while, but not much chance (not since I was 19 and working for the summer in the oil fields, when I occasionally drove the gooseneck) to practice.  It seems like the kind of skill a Wyoming boy should have.  But, also, I guess I realize that we all make choices about how to develop ourselves, and some skills are pretty hard to develop without a need. On the bright side, at least I haven't done anything like this ......

It's a rare summer that I get to dip my toes in both the Atlantic and the Pacific.  Here's a catch-up photo, from my trip with Maggie to San Diego/San Juan Capistrano at the end of August.  Yay, water!  Yay, travels! Which reminds me: one thing the summer taught me is that I still appreciate Wyoming.  I wondered if my time in Vermont, and a road trip across 2000 miles of country I've never seen, might create a yearning in me to be somewhere else, or might make me realize that my unwarranted sense of pride and awe about Wyoming is unfounded.  Instead, being somewhere else  mostly reinforced my commitment to Laramie, to my quick and affordable access to trails, to the view from my office of Medicine Bow Peak, and to the open landscapes I get to see every time I leave home to go somewhere else in this great state.  Don't get me wrong: I got to see a lot of great places this summer--places where I'm sure I could be perfectly happy and that I could grow to love.  Bu

On a trip to Jackson this weekend with Maggie, I commented that Montana seems to have done a much better job marketing its connection to the nation's first national park than Wyoming has.  The headline I spotted today really drives the point home.

This weekend was a pretty good one.  Dad and Susie came down, and we went for a little hike on the east side of Vedauwoo and ate some lunch of crackers and salami and apples there.  Yesterday was a pretty laid back day--we wandered around campus a bit before Dad and Susie left, and looked at the Chris Drury environmental sculpture on campus. Today Maggie and I climbed Med Bow, so now I've gotten in my yearly summit of the local big hill. Here's the obligatory shot of the mountains.  Even though I take essentially the same picture every time I go, I'm happy that the peaks still manage to create in me that "Holy shit! This is awesome!" feeling.  I hope that I never get used to the immensity and impressiveness of the landscape here.